


Masks and Crows

by Soha_Friend



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-11-26 22:47:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18186650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soha_Friend/pseuds/Soha_Friend
Summary: “Illya, I think you are in love!” Portia would laugh, teasing her brother.Love? Funny! This was not love, even if just as enchanting. Even though magic was evidently in the air, and they couldn’t get their eyes off of each other. Even though Julian often found himself staring, instead of working. Dreaming instead of hurting, for the first time in forever.





	Masks and Crows

**Author's Note:**

> Very out of canon. But I wrote this when I was just in the middle of Asra’s route, so in my defense I didn’t know many things at that point. Forgive me for I have sinned

**_We are kneeling at the river's edge and tempting_ ** ****  
**_All the steps to follow closer right behind_ ** ****  
**_Is it only when you feel a part is empty_ ** **_  
_****_That it’s gnawing at the corners of your mind_**

 

“Illya, I think you are in love!” Portia would laugh, teasing her brother.

 

Love? Funny! This was not love, even if just as enchanting. Even though magic was evidently in the air, and they couldn’t get their eyes off of each other. Even though Julian often found himself staring, instead of working. Dreaming instead of hurting, for the first time in forever.

 

He could not let it be! Everyone who got too close got hurt, Julian was in way too deep - engulfed in the pitch black of himself, afraid that if he reached out he would taint the white canvass of pureness with darkness. “Just research partners,” he would tell himself, “Just together to stop the plague!”

 

Love? No! He couldn’t name it that… Love was supposed to be like doves and roses, but all they had were ravens and broken mirrors. But sometimes it felt so easy to drown in the endless lake of those purple eyes. Sometimes it was so easy to forget, they did not belong - that he was not the one.

 

But he could not deny that he was growing way too attached. The doctor fell for the magician… How cliché. And he hated the way it sounded, but the stars were all his when he saw those purples smile, as if forgetting that they were just a veil for the treasury of secrets inside. Because Julian might have been the one wearing black capes, but he was not the one cloaking. Asra was like glass, but far from transparent...

 

“Stop playing with death,” Asra would say seriously, but Julian was not so blind as not to notice him wrapping death around his finger behind his back. This drove him on. _Open his locks. Discover his mysteries. Dispel his spells._ And it was almost a thrill every time, finding out yet another thing the other was hiding. He savored every scar from the shards of the other’s past he cut himself on. It seemed like there was a spell between them, or maybe he was just a masochist…

 

Asra was magical. An enigma. Untouchable, soft and pure. Julian did not deserve this. They were never meant to work, he tried to convince himself, but with each second it became more impossible to realize that the magic only came and went. That Asra was not his. That these feelings might be just another trick under the witch’s sleeve.

 

“Illyush, that’s what falling in love is like.”

 

No, no, no. Stop! Monsters were not permitted emotions, monsters were not allowed to feel. And yet he felt the whole spectrum of feelings when they kissed, and even more so when Asra walked away like nothing happened. He despised himself for jealousy. He told himself that he was the problem, and drowned himself in sorrow, blood and vodka.

 

But even with all the self loathing, he saw that he was not the only one at fault. The witch had commitment issues… Or just issues with committing to him?

 

**_It is not clear why we choose the fire pathway_ ** ****  
**_Where we end is not the way that we had planned_ ** ****  
**_All the spirits gather 'round like it's our last day_ **

**To _get across you know we’ll have to raise the sand_**

 

At one point, he decided that their relationship was like the plague. Restleless, bloody, unescapable. Crows and snakes and crows - it was almost too much, but never enough. The thrill of always trying to find the solution. The freezing feeling of helplessness when, despite the efforts, the bruised patient rolls in convulsions, choking on their blood - and even magic can’t help.

 

He hated not seeing Asra’s eyes, mostly because they were the only gateway for truth. Masks. It all felt the same as wearing a mask, before the final verdict. He was used to being hated. He was to be the faceless death that told the sick whether they would make it. In their eyes he took it all. In truth he’s only ever shown what was already taken. Maybe, then, it were only his eyes that saw Asra taking away so much. Maybe a part of him _was_ irreversibly broken. Maybe monsters really could not love.

 

**_I will ask you for mercy_ ** ****  
**_I will come to you blind_ ** ****  
**_What you’ll see is the worst me_ ** **_  
_****_Not the last of my kind_**

 

He left because he couldn’t take it anymore. Because the moment the castle went up in flames, he knew, that so did the thin delusion of love. He was fed up with masks and ravens, lies and secrets.

 

But when the masks went off - he felt sick. Ill from the truth. Angry at the lies! When they parted, he realized how dependent he was, how much he missed the magician. But he also realized that they really were not meant to be. No! How could this be their reality? How could he not notice the blacks and the reds creeping to get them…

 

Black dots on his skin. Red blood in his eyes.

 

The realization of they would never be. made him weak. The realization - weak. Weak. Weak.

 

_Asra, this is all your fault..._

 

Silence…

 

“Doctor 069, what is your last wish?”

 

“Do.. don’t call me that!” He collected the last venom he could, “It’s.. it’s Julian.”

 

“I know who you are, Decorak. Your last wish.”

 

_Bring Asra here. Let me see those purple eyes even if just through the mask. Let him be the one at my death bed._

 

The words blended into a convulsion, as his vision reddened completely.

 

“Tell my sister that I love her.”

 

**_In the muddy water we’re falling_ ** ****  
**_In the muddy water we’re crawling_ ** ****  
**_Holds me down_ ** ****  
**_Hold me now_ ** ****  
**_Sold me out_** ** _  
_****_In the muddy water we’re falling..._**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
